Dependence of the large-scale vortex instability on latitude, stratification and domain size

TL;DR

This study explores how large-scale vortex instabilities in rotating convection models depend on latitude, stratification, and domain size, revealing conditions for their onset and how they vary with these parameters.

Contribution

It extends previous work by analyzing the effects of domain size, stratification, and latitude on vortex instability in hydrodynamical convection models.

Findings

Vortex size scales with domain size.

Instability is suppressed at small domain sizes.

Higher stratification enhances temperature anomalies.

Abstract

In an earlier study, we reported on the excitation of large-scale vortices in Cartesian hydrodynamical convection models subject to rapid enough rotation. In that study, the conditions of the onset of the instability were investigated in terms of the Reynolds (Re) and Coriolis (Co) numbers in models located at the stellar North pole. In this study, we extend our investigation to varying domain sizes, increasing stratification and place the box at different latitudes. The effect of the increasing box size is to increase the sizes of the generated structures, so that the principal vortex always fills roughly half of the computational domain. The instability becomes stronger in the sense that the temperature anomaly and change in the radial velocity are observed to be enhanced. The model with the smallest box size is found to be stable against the instability, suggesting that a sufficient scale separation between the convective eddies and the scale of the domain is required for the instability to work. The instability can be seen upto the co-latitude of 30 degrees, above which value the flow becomes dominated by other types of mean flows. The instability can also be seen in a model with larger stratification. Unlike the weakly stratified cases, the temperature anomaly caused by the vortex structures is seen to depend on depth.